"Do you care for him still?"
"Not a day passed during these many months that I did not vow I hated
him."
"Any one else know?"
"The padre. I had to tell some one or go mad. But I didn't hate him. I
could no more put him out of my life than I could stop breathing. Ah, I
have been so miserable and unhappy!" She laid her head upon his knees and
clumsily he stroked it. His girl!
"That's the trouble with us Irish, Nora. We jump without looking, without
finding whether we're right or wrong. Well, your daddy's opinion is that
you should have read his first letter. If it didn't ring right, why, you
could have jumped the traces. I don't believe he did anything wrong at
all. It isn't in the man's blood to do anything underboard."
"But I saw her," a queer look in her eyes as she glanced up at him.
"I don't care a kioodle if you did. Take it from me, it was a put-up job
by that Calabrian woman. She might have gone to his room for any number of
harmless things. But I think she was curious."
"Why didn't she come to me, if she wanted to ask questions?"
"I can see you answering 'em. She probably just wanted to know if you were
married or not. She might have been in love with him, and then she might
not. These Italians don't know half the time what they're about, anyhow.
But I don't believe it of Courtlandt. He doesn't line up that way.
Besides, he's got eyes. You're a thousand times more attractive. He's no
fool. Know what I think? As she was coming out she saw you at your door;
and the devil in her got busy."
Nora rose, flung her arms around him and kissed him.
"Look out for that tin ear!"
"Oh, you great big, loyal, true-hearted man! Open that door and let me get
out to the terrace. I want to sing, sing!"
"He said he was going to Milan in the morning."
She danced to the door and was gone.
"Nora!" he called, impatiently. He listened in vain for the sound of her
return. "Well, I'll take the count when it comes to guessing what a
woman's going to do. I'll go out and square up with the old girl. Wonder
how this news will harness up with her social bug?"
Courtlandt got into his compartment at Varenna. He had tipped the guard
liberally not to open the door for any one else, unless the train was
crowded. As the shrill blast of the conductor's horn sounded the warning
of "all aboard," the door opened and a heavily veiled woman got in
hurriedly. The train began to move instantly. The guard slammed the door
and latched it. Courtlandt sighed: the futility of trusting these
Italians, of trying to buy their loyalty! The woman was without any
luggage whatever, not even the usual magazine. She was dressed in brown,
her hat was brown, her veil, her gloves, her shoes. But whether she was
young or old was beyond his deduction. He opened his Corriere and held
it before his eyes; but he found reading impossible. The newspaper finally
slipped from his hands to the floor where it swayed and rustled unnoticed.
He was staring at the promontory across Lecco, the green and restful hill,
the little earthly paradise out of which he had been unjustly cast. He
couldn't understand. He had lived cleanly and decently; he had wronged no
man or woman, nor himself. And yet, through some evil twist of fate, he
had lost all there was in life worth having. The train lurched around a
shoulder of the mountain. He leaned against the window. In a moment more
the villa was gone.